I'm a libertarian lawyer and college professor. I blog on religion, history, constitutional law, government policy, philosophy, sexuality, and the American Founding. Everything is fair game though. Over the years, I've been involved in numerous group blogs that come and go. This blog archives almost everything I write.
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Wednesday, July 01, 2015

Cosmic Religions

Here is a taste insofar as it relates to the American Founding & Religion:

But Franklin soon abandoned such strict deism. He desired to
worship a more personal God. So his next stop — where he attempted to
reconcile Enlightenment with worship of a personal God — was something
quite cosmic, indeed proto-Mormon. As he described it in 1728:

When I think thus, I imagine it great Vanity in me to suppose, that the Supremely Perfect,
does in the least regard such an inconsiderable Nothing as Man. More
especially, since it is impossible for me to have any positive clear
Idea of that which is infinite and incomprehensible, I cannot conceive
otherwise, than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no Worship or Praise from us, but that he is even INFINITELY ABOVE IT.

….

I CONCEIVE then, that the INFINITE has created many Beings or Gods,
vastly superior to Man, who can better conceive his Perfections than we,
and return him a more rational and glorious Praise. As among Men, the
Praise of the Ignorant or of Children, is not regarded by the ingenious
Painter or Architect, who is rather honour’d and pleas’d with the
Approbation of Wise men and Artists. .

It may be that these created Gods, are immortal, or it may be that
after many Ages, they are changed, and Others supply their Places. .

Howbeit, I conceive that each of these is exceeding wise, and good,
and very powerful; and that Each has made for himself, one glorious Sun,
attended with a beautiful and admirable System of Planets. .

It is that particular wise and good God, who is the Author and Owner
of our System, that I propose for the Object of my Praise and Adoration.
.

Note that Franklin, for the rest of his life articulated belief in an
active personal God, but never repudiated or retracted the above
“cosmic” sentiment. (I’m not sure, however, whether he continued to
believe in such.)